NZ suffering from democratic deficit says lobby group

Fast-tracking the
introduction of Internet voting and ensuring that
governments implement the outcomes of Citizen’s Initiated
referenda are two ways to address New Zealand’s democratic
deficit, according to a newly released documentary this
week.

While most New Zealanders probably believe
they live in a democratic society, Better Democracy New
Zealand and its Founder, Steve Baron, suggest otherwise and
have produced a documentary to substantiate their
argument.

In the You Tube documentary, which is
already attracting a large number of viewers and positive
reaction, Better Democracy New Zealand suggests a number of
significant changes to New Zealand’s democratic system.
These include using the rollout of Ultra-fast broadband to
address inadequacies in the voting system by enabling online
voting, scrutinising legislation coming from the House of
Representatives and introducing a direct democracy system
that is enjoyed by more than 70% of Americans and all Swiss
citizens.

The documentary titled, New
Zealand’s Democratic Deficit, raises issues about
many other aspects of the New Zealand political system; the
façade hiding what actually happens in Parliament, the
quality of political leadership and their disregard for
political processes, the lack of a codified Constitution,
the fallacy of entrenched laws, the dilemma of ‘conscience
votes’ in Parliament, the abuse of the ‘urgency’
process, along with what the documentary is calling New
Zealand’s “Hall of Shame” which highlights the dark
side of numerous past and present Members of Parliament.

Steve Baron says, “The feedback from people viewing
the documentary has been very encouraging and the content
has struck a chord with New Zealanders right across the
political spectrum because they know there’s a problem
with their political system but they just haven’t been
aware of what the solution is, until now. It’s time we
took a deep and thoughtful look at our very weak political
system and made much needed changes”.

“It’s
ironic that the Internet Party, which announced Laila Harre
as its new leader this week, doesn’t even advocate for the
use of the internet to improve our electoral system, says Mr
Baron.

This documentary leads the viewer to consider
what it suggests are powerful tools New Zealanders can use
to resolve this democratic deficit—direct democracy, the
Swiss based system of binding Citizens’ Initiated
referendums, Veto referendums and Recall referendums which
have held the Swiss political system in high regard by many
political scientists around the world for over 140
years.

Mr Baron says, “We give our politicians too
much power with the only check and balance being an election
every few years which simply isn’t satisfactory in a
modern, well educated, well informed society which now
demands more say over issues that directly affect their
lives”.This documentary may be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-sH4vM6CD8>

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